Hawkins v. United States

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• Decided: August 22, 2022
• Docket: 22-1096
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

Case: 22-1096 Document: 35 Page: 1 Filed: 08/22/2022

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

FLORDELIZA A. HAWKINS, Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

UNITED STATES, Defendant-Appellee ______________________

2022-1096 ______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims in No. 1:19-cv-01672-VJW, Senior Judge Victor J. Wolski. ______________________

Decided: August 22, 2022 ______________________

FLORDELIZA A. HAWKINS, Oxnard, CA, pro se.

MARGARET JANTZEN, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash- ington, DC, for defendant-appellee. Also represented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, DEBORAH ANN BYNUM, PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY. ______________________

Before NEWMAN, REYNA, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges. Case: 22-1096 Document: 35 Page: 2 Filed: 08/22/2022

NEWMAN, Circuit Judge, Flordeliza A. Hawkins filed suit in the United States Court of Federal Claims, alleging violations of her consti- tutional and civil rights with regard to eviction from her home in 2013 after foreclosure proceedings by her mortga- gee, SunTrust Bank. The court granted the government’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Ms. Hawkins timely appealed. We affirm the Court of Federal Claims’ dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. DISCUSSION This court reviews issues of jurisdiction de novo. Acevedo v. United States, 824 F.3d 1365, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2016). When a party moves to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the court accepts as true all undis- puted facts and draws all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff’s favor. The court may consider extrinsic evidence when determining disputed jurisdictional facts. Shoshone Indian Tribe of Wind River Rsrv., Wyo. v. United States, 672 F.3d 1021, 1029–30 (Fed. Cir. 2012). The Tucker Act jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. § 1491(a)(1), re- quires a constitutional, statutory, or contractual right to money damages. N.Y. & Presbyterian Hosp. v. United States, 881 F.3d 877, 881 (Fed. Cir. 2018). There must be a substantive law that can “fairly be interpreted” as requir- ing the United States to pay damages. Id. This standard requires a lesser showing than is needed to demonstrate a waiver of sovereign immunity; only requiring that the legal source of the asserted claim “be reasonably amenable to the reading that it mandates a right of recovery in damages.” United States v. White Mountain Apache Tribe, 537 U.S. 465, 472–73 (2003). Case: 22-1096 Document: 35 Page: 3 Filed: 08/22/2022

HAWKINS v. US 3

This case presents no factual dispute. The question is whether Ms. Hawkins has identified a money-mandating source of law, due to a violation of a legal right or a breach of a contract with the federal government. We conclude that she has not. Ms. Hawkins identified the Fourteenth Amendment as the source of her claim. Appellant Br. 2. She previously also claimed violations of the Bill of Rights and the Thir- teenth Amendment. While these amendments restrict gov- ernment action, none of them is in jurisdictional terms empowered by the Tucker Act except the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Ms. Hawkins’s rights under the Takings Clause have not been violated. This clause prohibits taking of “private property for public use, without just compensation.” U.S. Const. amend. V. Here, a private bank implemented a fore- closure sale based on contractual provisions of a mortgage document. Appellee Appx. 0016–17. This does not impli- cate the Takings Clause. See, e.g., Squires-Cannon v. For- est Pres. Dist. of Cook Cty., 897 F.3d 797, 803 (7th Cir. 2018) (finding no taking when a government entity pur- chased property in a foreclosure sale based on a contractual right). Ms. Hawkins’ argues that her mortgage contract was with the federal government because the Department of Housing and Urban Development created some of the mortgage forms and placed its letterhead on those forms. But the government can generally only be sued for breach of contract when it is a party to the contract, which requires intent by the government to enter a contract. Turping v. United States, 913 F.3d 1060, 1066 (Fed. Cir. 2019). Gov- ernmental oversight of a contract form is insufficient. Katz v. Cisneros, 16 F.3d 1204, 1210 (Fed. Cir. 1994). That the Department of Housing and Urban Development created mortgage forms and oversees some aspects of mortgages Case: 22-1096 Document: 35 Page: 4 Filed: 08/22/2022

does not make it a party to the mortgage and does not pro- vide jurisdiction in the Court of Federal Claims. CONCLUSION The Court of Federal Claims correctly dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. AFFIRMED No costs.